


Retribution's Birth

by RogueBelle



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Pre-Canon, Rating: PG13, Sibling Incest, Wordcount: 100-1.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-02
Updated: 2011-06-02
Packaged: 2017-10-20 00:38:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/206946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RogueBelle/pseuds/RogueBelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cersei, the young new queen, comes to terms with the path she's landed on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Retribution's Birth

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a tourney at westerosorting.livejournal.com. The challenge was to write a sympathetic fic for a character you hate. And I freaking loathe Cersei. But, I really like this fic. So, it was a good challenge!

Cersei woke with proud tears stinging at the back of her eyes.

 _'I am a Queen,'_ she thought angrily, rolling over to stare at the ceiling, not the least bit sorry to find herself in an empty bed. _'A Queen, and a lioness of Casterly Rock, and still he pines for a dead wolf-bitch.'_

She sat up suddenly, punching at the mattress with both fists. It was humiliating, an insult to her person, her name, her family. She could not be expected to brook such degredations with patience.

 _'And I had made up my mind to try,'_ she thought, despair and dishonour warring inside her head. _'Does he think he was my first choice? The man who slaughtered—'_

A sob rose in her throat, and she choked it back so hard that she began coughing. One of her maids heard her and rushed into the room. "Your Grace, are you well?" the girl asked. "Should I bring water?"

Cersei looked up at the maid, hardly more than a child and yet hardly younger than herself, and wondered if Lord Robert – if Robert the King, Robert the First of His Name, had bedded her already. _'If not yet, then sure to be soon.'_ She was dark-haired and large-bosomed, and not, from Cersei's judgment made on brief acquaintance, over-intelligent. Yes, if Robert had not had her already, he certainly would notice her some night or other, when he was deep in his cups. _'Fine. Let him. Let him call someone else by her cursed name.'_

"No," she finally replied. "No water. Bring my brother," she snapped at the girl. She didn't know her name, any of their names, these attendants foisted on her along with her crown. That would have to change as well. She would have only her own creatures, loyal as shepherd's dogs, privy to her.

"Which one, Your Grace?" the girl replied.

"Jaime, of course!" Cersei shot back, annoyed at the stupidly blank expression gazing at her from vapid brown eyes. "What use could I possibly have for a stunted, monstrous child? Bring me _Jaime_ , and do it quickly!"

The maidservant skittered from the room, obviously frightened by Cersei's fierceness. Cersei flung herself back on her pillows, willing the tears – stupid, womanish, frail tears – not to brim over to her cheeks. _'He killed Rhaegar. He killed Rhaegar, and still I married him, like a good girl. I would have tried. I would have tried to be a good wife, a good Queen, if only he had...'_ The sorrow seized in her chest, a horrible, racking pain. She had tried so hard not to think of Robert as the brute who had slain the man she had loved, had intended to marry, not to think of him as the wrong King. _'King Rhaegar and Queen Cersei, it should have been, ought to have been. But Robert and his stupid wolf-bitch put an end to all that.'_

Her life had been so nicely planned, so well laid-out. Elia would have died sooner or later, fragile little thing that she was, and Targaryen men could never live long un-wived. Cersei could have been there, would have been there. But Rhaegar had met the Stark girl at the Harrenhal tourney, and become obsessed with her then. And yet Robert loved her still, called out her name on the one night he should have been able to give over to Cersei and only to Cersei.

 _'Always the Stark girl,_ ' she thought, tasting bitterness in her mouth. _'Both of them, my should-have-been and my unfortunate reality, both of them in love with Lyanna Stark. Damn the Starks, and damn her above all of them. What did that skinny little wretch have that I could not provide? And now she's dead and gone, and buried in the icy north, and yet still Robert prefers her cold embrace to myself.'_

Cersei jabbed the heels of her hands into her eyes. _'I will not have it. I will not submit quietly to this ... this mortification. He will pay for it. Oh, even if he never knows, he will suffer for it. Let him have the memory of his wolf-girl. I have memories of my own to awaken.'_

The door to her chamber opened again, and the maidservant slunk back in, staring down at her slippers to avoid meeting the Queen's eyes. "Jaime Lannister of the Kingsguard, Your Grace." She slipped aside to let Jaime in.

Cersei felt tears prick at her eyes again, but tears of a different sort. These were tears of joy, of admiration. _Here_ stood a man, a true knight and natural leader, all masculine virtue wrapped in such a brilliant package. Tall and golden, strong but slender – not a hairy, over-muscled lout like Robert – a man of grace and skill rather than one with nothing to offer but brute strength and overwhelming force, of finesse rather than fumbling.

"Leave us," Cersei said to the maidservant, who sketched a hasty curtsy and darted from the room, pulling the door shut behind her.

From the bed, Cersei held out her hand, and Jaime understood, as he had always understood.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this work, please check out [my blog](http://cassmorriswrites.com)! I also write original fiction, and my debut novel will be out January 2018.


End file.
